vestige

/ˈvestɪdʒ/ (bre, ipa) · [vˈɛstɪdʒ] /ˈvestɪdʒ/ (ame, ipa) · [vˈɛstɪdʒ] /ˈve-stij How to pronounce vestige (audio)/ (ame, mw)

vestige — 名詞

  • vestigesingular
  • vestigesplural

1. a very small piece, amount, or sign left behind when most of a thing, system, or

1.名詞C1
釋義

殘跡；痕跡

過去事物留下的微小遺留

a very small piece, amount, or sign left behind when most of a thing, system, or tradition has disappeared — for example, a broken tower that is all that survives of an old castle, or a custom that people still follow without remembering why it started.

例句

The crumbling watchtower is the last vestige of the castle that stood here for centuries.

那座搖搖欲墜的瞭望塔是這座城堡佇立數百年後留下的最後殘跡。

collocation: last vestige of

After the earthquake, not a single vestige of the old town square remained.

地震過後，舊城廣場連一點痕跡都沒有留下。

negative pattern: not a vestige of

同義詞
  • trace

    more common in everyday speech; a trace can be any very small amount, while a vestige always implies survival from a larger whole

  • remnant

    focuses on a physical leftover piece; remnant is more concrete than vestige, which can also refer to abstract or symbolic survivals

  • relic

    implies something valued or venerated from the past, like a historical object; relic has a more positive or respectful tone than vestige

反義詞
  • whole

    the complete thing that the vestige once belonged to

  • bulk

    the main or largest part, in contrast to the tiny remaining fragment

文法句型

not a vestige of [something]

last vestige of [something]

用法筆記

Frequently appears in negative constructions (not a vestige of) to emphasise that absolutely nothing of something remains. In everyday conversation, trace or sign are more common than vestige, which sounds literary or formal.

常見錯誤

❌I ate the last vestige of bread.
✅I ate the last piece of bread.
💡'vestige' is not used for ordinary small amounts of food or everyday objects; it describes something left from a larger, older, or more important whole.
❌There was a vestige of milk in the fridge.
✅There was a small amount of milk in the fridge.
💡'vestige' implies historical or symbolic survival, not a random small quantity.

2. a body part in a living creature that no longer performs a useful function becau

2.名詞C2
釋義

退化器官

已失去功能的殘留身體部位

a body part in a living creature that no longer performs a useful function because it has become smaller over many generations of evolution — for example, the human appendix, the tailbone, or the tiny leg bones found inside some snakes.

例句

The human appendix is a vestige of an organ that helped our distant ancestors digest tough plant material.

人類的闌尾是某個幫助遠古祖先消化粗糙植物材料之器官的退化殘留。

definitional: [body part] is a vestige of [its ancestral function]

Whales still carry small leg bones deep inside their bodies — vestiges of when their ancestors walked on land.

鯨魚的身體深處仍帶有小型腿骨，那是牠們的祖先仍在陸地行走時留下的退化痕跡。

同義詞
  • rudiment

    a formal technical term for an undeveloped or early-stage body part; rudiment can also mean the first beginning of something, while vestige always points backward to a lost past

文法句型

vestige of [ancestor's body part]

[body part] is a vestige

用法筆記

In biological writing, the adjective vestigial (e.g. 'a vestigial organ') is far more common than the noun vestige. The noun tends to appear in explanatory contexts where a specific structure is named as a surviving trace of an ancestor's anatomy.